Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

20 to 40 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Instant classic"

Warrior Within is, simply put, an awesome game. It dared to take Sands of Time colorful atmosphere into a much darker tone, with a more vicious and bloody combat system, a dark, sinister and bitter looking prince and a not so friendly potential lover. Even though the core of the game play remains the same, Warrior Within is much more than just a coat of dark paint.

Warrior Within has the Prince traveling to the Island of Time, in an attempt to prevent the creation of the Sands of Time and undo the consequences of the first game of the trilogy. From the very start and throughout he game, the story will be told through high quality movies. Not only they'll provide you the background of what's going on but they'll also give you a good insight of the Prince's and other major characters motives and disposition. It should be noted that those movies look good 5 years ofter the game's release and not only graphic wise, but also as a means to tell the story and create an engrossing atmosphere.

There are also some sequences done with the game's engine and sometimes the Prince offers his own insight on a situation by voicing his own thoughts. In a plot that uses a fair amount of traveling through time to prevent key events from happening, it's a nice feature.

To progress through the game and watch those movies you'll have to take the prince through several locations in the Island of Time. Traveling through those places will require a lot of acrobatic feats such as wall running, pole swinging, jumping and hanging from ledges. You'll run through maze like dungeons and narrow corridors but the action will also take place in open spaces. Gardens, the inside of a giant clock, a library, natural caves and a prison are some of the settings. They all require a keen eye to spot the bars, poles and runnable walls that form the core of the acrobatic puzzle.

As the action takes place in 3 dimensions and its often necessary to move in all directions, the game has a bird's eye camera and a first person view for a better understanding of your surroundings. The bird's eye view can't be moved but its fixed based on what needs to be grabbed, reached or jumped upon to solve the puzzle. Though some of the puzzles might require exploration and even multiple attempts, usually a quick look on the bird's view camera will solve your problems.

The prince will also make use of his acrobatic skills to defeat a lot of minor enemies and bosses. Minor enemies come in large groups and are usually not hard to defeat once you figure the correct strategy. Nimble and agile women won't fall prey to acrobatic moves and axe wielding giant executioners will block most of your direct attacks. Figuring out how to fight each enemy is an interesting feature of the open ended combat system. Attacks are fluid and easy to link together. It's beautiful to insert an acrobatic maneuver in a combo such as a back flip, a somersault or simply to jump over an enemy and attack it from behind. You can also disarm your opponents and throw your weapon but even those are not actions taken outside combat. They also can be linked on your moves, turning the Prince on an effective and nice to behold killing machine. The walls, pillars and poles can also be used as environmental weapons so you really get to choose the approach to kill a certain group of enemies.

Adding to the array of acrobatic moves and attacks are the time bending powers. You will be able to slow or reverse time, to gather the power of the sands in an explosion and much more.

After playing the game for several hours I really had the feeling I had crafted my own fighting style and it's actually rewarding to see such a nice combat engine in motion.

On the top of that, the music fits perfectly with the action sequences and moments of tension and the voice acting is very good, particularly of Kaileena. The tracks are varied and I heard brand new tunes on the last chapters.

The darker tone doesn't mean that combat has taken the place of the plot or that the focus has shifted from story to action. The plot in Warrior Within is very well explored and it hooked me from the very start until the very end.

A bit of re-visiting the same areas more than once and the fact that the game can trick you into going in the wrong direction once all paths are opened are the only things that prevented it from being a perfect game. I find impossible not to recommend it since it's a very good game and it's under $10 on STEAM.